Estonian Parliamentary Elections 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 250 Estonian political advertisers during the 2023 Parliamentary Elections to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 21st - February 27th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (January 29th - February 27th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend
EKRE 35


1. Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (€54,681)
2. Palle Kõlar (€1,492)
3. Elar Niglas (€791)

 303 €65,168
RE 46


1. Reformierakond Tallinnas (€10,640)
2. Eesti Reformierakond (€8,607)
3. Reformierakond Harjumaal (€4,101)

 629 €46,892
SDE 39


1. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond (€17,295)
2. Tartu ja Tartumaa sotsiaaldemokraadid (€3,422)
3. Jevgeni Ossinovski (€2,431)

 599 €35,719
I 33


1. Isamaa (€10,647)
2. Urmas Reinsalu (€2,671)
3. Riho Terras (€2,403)

 218 €25,960
E200 29


1. Eesti 200 (€8,146)
2. Eesti 200 Tartu (€2,550)
3. Jaak Laineste Eesti 200 (€1,999)

 358 €18,184
K 47


1. Jüri Ratas (€1,249)
2. Александр Чаплыгин (€974)
3. Igor Gräzin (€964)

 327 €11,563

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

EKRE

32


1. Eesti Konservatiivne Rahvaerakond (€18,520)
2. Konservatiivne Harjumaa (€511)
3. Palle Kõlar (€446)

193

€23,143

SDE

38


1. Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond (€12,701)
2. Tartu ja Tartumaa sotsiaaldemokraadid (€1,465)
3. Jevgeni Ossinovski (€1,011)

378

€21,255

RE

41


1. Reformierakond Tallinnas (€2,401)
2. Kristina Šmigun-Vähi (€1,285)
3. Hanah Lahe (€774)

408

€11,844

I

32


1. Isamaa (€3,499)
2. Urmas Reinsalu (€1,186)
3. Kristian Taska (€595)

146

€10,311

E200

23


1. Eesti 200 (€2,632)
2. Jaak Laineste Eesti 200 (€1,246)
3. Eesti 200 Tartu (€1,054)

248

€7,532

K

45


1. Jüri Ratas (€519)
2. Keskerakond (€467)
3. Igor Gräzin (€420)

188

€6,154

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. The amount on the right shows the total Euros spend on that specific target audience.

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

January 29th - February 27th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 21st - February 27th 2023 (Last 7 days)